“Do a friend a favor,” says a promotional card included in the legendary 1979 board game Dune. “If you know someone who has the basic brain power to comprehend Avalon Hill games, then get him to send us this postcard.”

At the bottom of the card, that friend literally has to sign a sort of affidavit: “I swear that I have the necessary grey matter to enjoy your games.”

As a sales tactic, this may be puzzling to modern eyes, but back in the pre-Internet, pre-console days, gaming saw itself as an elite hobby—something only for the nerdiest nerds. Gary Gygax’s Dungeons and Dragons, which was first published five years previously in 1974, had perhaps begun to throw the gates of gaming open to the masses, but board gaming was not a hobby for the many until the mid ‘90s.

In fact, despite the ubiquity of Risk and Monopoly, there was barely a board gaming scene as we modern gamers might understand it. Most of the hobby featured wargames with densely numbered counters moving across hexagonal grids simulating real-world conflicts of the past.

But there were a few bright spots. One of these bright spots was Dune, the cardboard adaption of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel. While it contains many wargame-like tropes, being a battle-heavy game of area control in which generals throw heaps of colored counters to their deaths, Dune was decades ahead of its time. In fact, it invented numerous concepts that wouldn’t be seen again for 25 years and blended them with a subtlety most games don’t manage to this day.

So how did Dune become one of the great “lost games”? And how does it hold up today?

The biggest bomb ever

Dune was moderately popular at the time of its release, and Avalon Hill was persuaded to re-release it in 1984 to coincide with the towering failure of David Lynch’s film adaptation. This, according to an interview with Peter Olotka, one of the game’s designers, did not pay off.

"When the movie was coming out, we convinced Avalon Hill to reissue Dune with a new box cover that had someone who looked like Sting on the cover, along with two expansion sets,” he said in the 2007 interview. “After the movie came out—which was the biggest bomb ever—Dune just stopped selling. It just stopped. That was it, end of story."

After that, copies of the game became increasingly scarce, even as its reputation increased. As board gaming blossomed in popularity, the clamor for a new edition grew. Sadly, the Herbert estate proved reluctant to re-issue a license, forcing Fantasy Flight Games to antagonise purists with its shiny but thematically alien re-brand, called Rex, in 2012.

Used versions of Dune now go for $150 (~£130) on Board Game Geek, while a cursory look at eBay sees unpunched but opened editions on sale for $250—and mint copies go for $600 or more. In short, the game is a collectors’ item unlike almost any other in board gaming—and a friend of mine with considerably more money than sense bought a copy a few years ago. Recently, I played it.

Designed by Olotka, Bill Eberle, and Jack Kittredge, Dune was originally imagined as Tribute, a game set in the early Roman times. When it turned out that Avalon Hill had the rights to Dune, the design team decided to retrofit the existing game, including its innovative battle dials, for the new universe.

Avalon Hill was set up as a wargames specialist, publishing Tactics, the first mass-market game of its kind, in 1958. The company went on to print hundreds more counter-based games, inventing now-staple gaming concepts like hexagonal grids, stacks of units, and even simulations of troop strength and morale.

Between releases of Advanced Squad Leader, Panzer Blitz, and Gettysburg, however, Avalon Hill was also responsible for several seminal non-wargames, including Civilisation, Diplomacy, and Dune. Each one proved a classic, with the first going on to inspire Sid Meier’s incredibly popular video game series and the second launching a million permanent rifts between friends.

Then there was Dune.

Because Avalon Hill hates casuals, the player aides are
double-sided and written half in code

Tom Mendelsohn

The mighty, if low-fi, armies battling for Dune. The starred tokens
are double strength elites, except when they aren't...

Tom Mendelsohn

All your favourite characters from the books, ready to let you
down when you need them most.

Tom Mendelsohn

: Board game components have definitely come on in leaps and bounds
since the 70s.

Tom Mendelsohn

Cards from the spice blow deck.

Tom Mendelsohn

Cards from the treachery deck, including the various weapons and
defences.

Tom Mendelsohn

Asymmetry on Arrakis

That little promotional card Avalon Hill’s marketing department slipped into every box had it right—Dune is not a game for the faint of heart or the tactically naive. In fact, it’s an unremitting game of diplomacy and betrayal, featuring six completely asymmetric factions competing for control of the desert planet Arrakis. You win, most of the time, by being the biggest bastard at the table.

Knowledge of the book isn’t necessary to play, and there aren’t any spoilers—players are rewriting the plot from the ground up each time. What you need to know is best summarised on the box itself:

Among the countless planets inhabiting the galaxies of the universe is a small and inconspicuous bit of rock and sand known to its inhabitants as Dune. This planet has practically no vegetation and so little water that a man left exposed on its surface will die of dehydration in minutes. Storms with super-hurricane velocity sweep the planet's surface, and giant sandworms who are often over a quarter mile in length devour anything that moves on the open sand. This is the planet which is the only source of melange, a spice which prevents human aging and makes possible the prescient navigation among the stars which is essential for the continued existence of the galaxy's far-flung civilization. Dune is the focal point in a power struggle among the galaxy's most powerful factions. Whoever controls Dune and its spice has the power to rule the universe.

You’re in a battle to control it as one of six factions from the novel: House Atreides, House Harkonnen, the Fremen, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Padishah Emperor. Each of these comes with special rules and starting conditions; some factions are rich, some have powerful troops, one is particularly good at betrayal, and one—the pre-cognisant space nuns of the Bene Gesserit—will win the game if they can correctly guess, at the game’s beginning, the round on which it will end.

Winning is easy: use your troops to take control of three of the five strongholds (or four of five if you have an ally, or all five with two allies) over the course of 15 rounds. Central to gameplay is spice: it’s the currency that lets you move troops, requisition more of them, and revive dead heroes. Movement on the planet is limited to one space at a time, making each decision on where to commit troops from off-world critical. Making things tougher, Arrakis is wracked by a lethal storm that randomly circles the board in a counter-clockwise direction, killing everything not hunkered down in a stronghold.

Each turn, a deck of Spice Blow cards deposits a spice in a different territory, forcing the poorer factions to battle over it. Sometimes, one of the novel’s giant sandworms, the Shai-Hulud, appears along with the spice, leaving an extra layer of destruction in its wake (unless you are the native Fremen, who can ride the sandworms around the board).

Gameplay hinges on the combat, using a system that would be considered state-of-the-art (if thoroughly evil) even today. There isn’t a die in sight; instead, players move units either from adjacent spaces or from off-planet, then uses a combat dial to secretly select how many units to commit to battle—the winner loses only the troops she’s committed, while the loser loses them all.

These risk-reward battle calculations are complicated as players can also add one of their five faction leaders into the fighting. Each of these is a character from the book, represented by a disk that slots onto the underside of the dial and adds extra points to the battle score. The leaders are also entitled to play treachery cards they’ve previously bid on from a central deck—to use a projectile or poison attack or corresponding defences. An undefended attack—say, if one side plays a poison weapon but the other only deploys an energy shield—kills that leader.

To compound the mind games, every player is secretly dealt one leader belonging to someone else; this leader becomes a traitor in that player’s employ. If your foe unwittingly deploys that traitor in battle, they lose instantly, costing them the battle and all their troops—which can usually be regenerated at a rate of one or three per turn. The dastardly Harkonnen have a full four traitors, which makes fighting them exceptionally frustrating.

Conflict becomes a battle of wits and bluffing. I’ve seen victories arise from some truly audacious fake-outs, in which one side has attempted to second guess a weapon choice, only to be double outwitted. I personally learned about traitors and the costs of over-commitment the hard way: in my first game as the wealthy, militarily mighty Emperor, my entire army was wiped out immediately upon planetfall, as my all-conquering general promptly betrayed the lot of them to the Harkonnen on turn one. Troopless and impoverished, I was out of the game for half a dozen rounds as I tried to rebuild my forces. Interestingly, I did return to contention—the game’s natural attrition rapidly left everyone else with military skeleton crews, but I’ve learned that the best way to use the Emperor’s 20 off-planet troops is after everyone else has battered each other into a standstill.

There’s even nastiness in the bidding round. The treachery deck hold five worthless cards, and various other semi-useless ones, all of which must be purchased face down. For those factions not rolling in melange, accidentally bidding on a musical instrument can be crippling, while the Emperor gets to keep the cash from each transaction.

I love this game. An engaging tabletop with Dune characters, themes, memes and pathos. Playing with other SF fanatics is fantastic. The kind of game you end up roleplaying your faction much to everyone's enjoyment (though everyone is treacherous, that's pretty much the point).

The rules *are* ambiguous, resulting in an expanding "house rules" addendum, as well as cheat sheets for turn and combat activities (cause there may be a certain amount of spiced, um, leaf consumed during gameplay).

I've never played with more than four. Six would be wild, lots more alliances and the inevitable treachery. We've tried tweaking for fewer players by eliminating a couple of factions but ended up finding all of them have interesting aspects. Though I think fremen (travel and sandstorm bonuses) are OP but hey it is their planet after all.

Haven't played in a while, everyone is off doing their thing. Time to pass this article on to my friends and pick a date for a game or two. Also, Modern Navel Battles and Weed. Damn, I miss playing tabletop games. When did I get so old?

It seems an amazing board game - wonder if a port to pc / ios is possible?

I also remember playing the first two Dune games on my old AMD 800mhz (I think) - they invented so many aspects of modern 4x RTS games and their open world aspects were amazing for the time. I had no idea a board game was around too.

Dune movie was a flop? could've fooled me, when a cable showing hits its all a buzz at work... infecting yet new young minds with SPICE! and then a follow on read/reread of the DUNE series...

It was a major box office flop when it was first released, but has gained cult status after being shown on cable TV for many years. My first exposure to the Dune universe was watching the Smithee version of Dune on cable as a kid. It inspired me to read all of the novels in the series.

The game sounds like a lot of fun, unfortunately I don't think any of my board gaming group has the cash to blow on it. Thanks for the article!

If you're like me, sometime in the late 90's, early 00's while I was raising kids. I love these articles and get nostalgic every time I read one. Would really like to start up a gaming night, mostly for the comradary.

Dune movie was a flop? could've fooled me, when a cable showing hits its all a buzz at work... infecting yet new young minds with SPICE! and then a follow on read/reread of the DUNE series...

It WAS a terrible flop in theatres, a legendary box-office bomb that almost ended David Lynch's career, and to this day he disowns it. It's got a cult following now however, and I think it's a flawed masterpiece. While it is incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with the books and makes some absolutely stupid changes (the 'wierding way of battle' becomes sound-powered blasters?) The excellent casting and zany, over-the-top bombast never fail to make me grin.

There are some excellent fan-edits out there on the torrents too, I prefer SpiceDiver's Redux Final.

There was also a 2000 mini-series which is quite a bit more faithful but I found the casting and costuming to be inferior, and the sequel mini-series 'Children of Dune' replaces half the actors of the first one. Still worth watching, however.

That aside, I never heard of the game (would have been a bit too young at time of release) but the fact that it was made by the designers of Cosmic Encounter, a game I used to play as a kid with my family (and also had famously unclear rules, my mother stopped playing after huge fight about wether her racial ability to take used ability cards was applicable after i deployed 'cosmic zap' which prevents racial power use.) makes me very interested. I refuse to pay 'collector' prices on Ebay for a game I intend to play, not lock away, so I'd probably prefer to look into one of the DIY remakes listed above.

Thanks for posting an interesting article on a piece of boardgame history!

In middle school a group of friends and I would play this once a month or so. It would take all day to play. So many good memories of alliances, betrayals, and blowing up the shield wall It took us a while to master the rules, but once you got it, it's a blast. We did have to come up with house rules due to everything not taken into account.

With the board game resurgence the last few years, I would hope it might be re-released, but unfortunately the Herbert estate is notoriously finicky when it comes to licensing. Same thing with a mobile release, I don't think they'd ever do it.

Huh, weird. I ended up with a copy of this somehow, and I don't play board games. The box is sort of beat up, but everything looks like it's there. I've carried it through at least four moves, and I don't know if I ever opened it before today.

Huh, weird. I ended up with a copy of this somehow, and I don't play board games. The box is sort of beat up, but everything looks like it's there. I've carried it through at least four moves, and I don't know if I ever opened it before today.

"Probably the greatest reason to play Dune in its original incarnation is how much it makes you feel like you’re there in the pages of a novel"

That speaks well for its thematic coloration! Dune's designers (Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Peter Olotka) used similar mechanics in their earlier game, the thoroughly enjoyable but completely non-thematic Cosmic Encounters.

Fantasy Flight came out with a game that's mechanically almost exactly the same, or at least copied most of the game mechanics, but set in an entirely different IP (the Twilight Imperium one). Most of it is exactly 1:1, in that you can read a given faction's card and tell 'Oh, that's Atreides, and this is Harkonnen, and that's the Guild..." etc.

Edit: Maybe I should make my point clearer. Pretty much the only reason this game is out of print is because of copyright/intellectual property issues. Mechanics-wise it's a fun and fascinating game, and those have been reused almost at a carbon-copy level in the above game I referenced. It reminds me of the recent issue with Alan Wake being pulled from digital stores because of music licenses expiring.

Love the article, although I never played this particular game. Makes me think of an earlier AH effort "Kingmaker".

Not so fond of the implications that gaming was somehow deficient back in those days because we didn't have all of the "modern conveniences", whatever those might turn out to be.

It was a fascinating time to be involved in the hobby, precisely because new game systems were being designed and tested all of the time. And the graphics kept getting better. Also there were at least a dozen small publishers coming in and out of existence. Not to mention the plethora of 'bootleg" games - I've got several unauthorized LOTR related games in my basement.

Now it feels like most board games are designed by "Game scientists", guaranteed to have several clever, interlocking mechanisms, yet at the same time, never take more than 2 hours to play.

If you're looking for a copy of this game online, just be aware that Parker Brothers put out a Dune game that is completely different from the one in this article. Make sure it's the Avalon Hill version you're getting.

>Ah, Kingmaker, a great game. A great balance of diplomacy, back stabbing, strategic vision, and tactics.

The pre-cognisant space nuns of the Bene Gesserit—will win the game if they can correctly guess, at the game’s beginning, the round on which it will end.

AND who wins /nitpick.

Because of the sides' asymmetry there's a rarely-seen side effect: This game is really good to play with people who have different levels of board gaming experience AND experience with this game in particular. How, you ask? You give BG to the guy with the most experience; they can do subtle and look like they're not doing much, which is awesome to see develop naturally. You give the Guild to the new player, because they'll love having all the money and cards to play with and test out, and they can be really straightforward in hunting for objectives. You give Fremen/Harkonnen to people who love to do combat math, because they're usually quick at it and can deliver huge blows to alter the board state immensely. Alternatively, you can give Atreides, Fremen and Harkonnen to the inbetweeners because they're pretty interchangeable in play style difficulty.

Oh, and houserule: The slow/meticulous thinker of your group MUST NOT be allowed to play Atreides or be allied with them. I have seen a single buy-cards phase last a full hour. Friends don't let that happen to friend.s

Dune movie was a flop? could've fooled me, when a cable showing hits its all a buzz at work... infecting yet new young minds with SPICE! and then a follow on read/reread of the DUNE series...

It WAS a terrible flop in theatres, a legendary box-office bomb that almost ended David Lynch's career, and to this day he disowns it. It's got a cult following now however, and I think it's a flawed masterpiece. While it is incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with the books and makes some absolutely stupid changes (the 'wierding way of battle' becomes sound-powered blasters?) The excellent casting and zany, over-the-top bombast never fail to make me grin.

There are some excellent fan-edits out there on the torrents too, I prefer SpiceDiver's Redux Final.

There was also a 2000 mini-series which is quite a bit more faithful but I found the casting and costuming to be inferior, and the sequel mini-series 'Children of Dune' replaces half the actors of the first one. Still worth watching, however.

That aside, I never heard of the game (would have been a bit too young at time of release) but the fact that it was made by the designers of Cosmic Encounter, a game I used to play as a kid with my family (and also had famously unclear rules, my mother stopped playing after huge fight about wether her racial ability to take used ability cards was applicable after i deployed 'cosmic zap' which prevents racial power use.) makes me very interested. I refuse to pay 'collector' prices on Ebay for a game I intend to play, not lock away, so I'd probably prefer to look into one of the DIY remakes listed above.

Thanks for posting an interesting article on a piece of boardgame history!

I saw the movie in the theater with my grandfather back in 1984. I loved it, but I'm pretty sure he was the most confused human being on the planet that day.

I had no idea it was that rare - I really need to mention this to the friend of mine who owns it. Looking at some of the prices is crazy and I'm surprised to find such a rarity in our groups collection (even more so when you consider that we're in NZ).

We had monthly sessions up at his place for a while and it's a game that still holds up - a little long winded but when the players know the rules it's not too cumbersome. I do like that the different roles in the game significantly change your experience of the game.

I'm reading the novels again (and despite the fact that it's the fourth time in as many years I'm still very much blown away) and this sounds absolutely amazing, and true to the books. Most of my game friends are into coop games these days though, but they might be into some light backstabbing in the fall when darkness descends upon the lands again.

The theatrical cut was a mess. I do remember, distantly, that we were being shown some version of it at daycare one day. Don't ask; I was maybe five at the time.

This game looks kind of amazing, though. I usually love asymmetrical things (7 Wonders, Dead of Winter, Betrayal at House on the Hill even if it does need a new title) and seeing how dramatically they can change from one play to the next.

The theatrical cut was a mess. I do remember, distantly, that we were being shown some version of it at daycare one day. Don't ask; I was maybe five at the time.

This game looks kind of amazing, though. I usually love asymmetrical things (7 Wonders, Dead of Winter, Betrayal at House on the Hill even if it does need a new title) and seeing how dramatically they can change from one play to the next.